Imaginary LIves

By Marcel Schwob

Marcel Schwob (1867-1905) was one of the key symbolist writers, standing in French literature alongside such names as Stephane Mallarme, Octave Mirbeau, Andre Gide, Leon Bloy, Jules Renard, Remy de Gourmont, and Alfred Jarry. His best-known works are Double Heart (1891), The King In The Gold Mask (1892), and Imaginary Lives (1896). Imaginary Lives contains twenty-two mythopoeic literary portraits of figures from ancient history, art history, and the history of crime and punishment. From demi-gods, sorcerers, incendiaries, wantons and philosophers of the ancient world, to the "poet of hate-Cecco Angiolieri and the painter Paolo Uccello, through to the pirates William Kidd and Major Stede-Bonnet, and finally Burke and Hare, the serial killers; Schwob presents a vivid array of characters who display all that is macabre, deviant and magnificently terrifying in human beings and in life. In Imaginary Lives, Schwob has created a "secret-masterpiece that joins other biographical glossaries such as Jorge Luis Borges' A Universal History Of Infamy and Alfonso Reyes' Real And Imagined Portraits in the pantheon of classic speculative fiction, of which Schwob's book is the dark progenitor. Livid with decadent imagery, Imaginary Lives resonates loudly today with its themes of temporality, myth, violence and sexuality, and stands as a major work of the fin-de-sicle.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Elektron Ebooks
• Release date: Mar 4, 2015
• ISBN: 9781908694362

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IMAGINARY LIVES

BY MARCEL SCHWOB

AN EBOOK

ISBN 978-1-908694-36-2

PUBLISHED BY ELEKTRON EBOOKS

COPYRIGHT 2012 ELEKTRON EBOOKS

www.elektron-ebooks.com

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a database or retrieval system, posted on any internet site, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright holders. Any such copyright infringement of this publication may result in civil prosecution

INTRODUCTION

Marcel Schwob (1867–1905) was one of the key symbolist writers, standing in French literature alongside such names as Stéphane Mallarmé, Octave Mirbeau, André Gide, Léon Bloy, Jules Renard, Rémy de Gourmont, and Alfred Jarry. His best-known works are Double Heart (1891), The King In The Gold Mask (1892), and the present volume, Imaginary Lives (1896). He was the first translator into French of Robert Louis Stevenson, and also helped Oscar Wilde with the writing in French of his controversial play Salome. Wilde dedicated his long poem The Sphinx to Schwob in 1894. Other writers to acknowledge Schwob included Paul Valéry, with two dedications, and Alfred Jarry who dedicated his Ubu Roi to him.

Imaginary Lives contains twenty-two mythopoeic literary portraits of figures from ancient history, art history, and the history of crime and punishment. From demi-gods, sorcerers, incendiaries, wantons and philosophers of the ancient world, to the poet of hate Cecco Angiolieri and the painter Paolo Uccello, through to the pirates William Kidd and Major Stede-Bonnet, and finally Burke and Hare, the serial killers; Schwob presents a vivid array of characters who display all that is macabre, deviant and magnificently terrifying in human beings and in life.

In Imaginary Lives, Schwob has created a secret masterpiece that joins other biographical glossaries such as Jorge Luis Borges’ A Universal History Of Infamy and Alfonso Reyes’ Real And Imagined Portraits in the pantheon of classic speculative fiction, of which Schwob’s book is the dark progenitor. Livid with decadent imagery, Imaginary Lives resonates loudly today with its themes of temporality, myth, violence and sexuality, and stands as a major work of the fin-de-siècle.

Sadly, it was to be Schwob’s last significant work; his health had begun to deteriorate rapidly, and in 1901 he sailed to Samoa in search of a cure. Returning to Paris, he lived as a recluse until his death four years later. To compound the elements of classic decadence in his short life and career, it is said that he died from the effects of a syphilitic tumor in the rectum, resulting from sodomistic relations with a boy prostitute.

AUTHOR’S PREFACE

The science of history leaves us uncertain as to individuals, revealing only those points by which individuals have been attached to generalities.

History tells us that Napoleon was ill on the day of Waterloo; that we must attribute Newton’s excessive intellectuality to the absolute consistency of his temperament; that Alexander was drunk when he killed Klitos; and that the fistula of Louis XIV was perhaps the cause of certain of his resolutions. Pascal speculates on the length of Cleopatra’s nose… the possible consequences had it been a trifle shorter; and on the grain of sand in Cromwell’s urethra. All these facts are valued only when they modify events or alter a series of events.

They are causes, established or possible. We must leave them to savants.

Contrary to history, art describes individuals, desires only the unique. It does not classify, it unclassifies. No matter how much they may engage us, our generalizations may be likened to those pursued upon the planet Mars, and three lines drawn to intersect them might form a triangle on all the points of the universe. But consider a leaf with its intricate nerve system, its colour variegated by shade and sun; the imprint of a raindrop; the tiny mark left by an insect; the silver trace of a snail; or the first mortal touch of autumn gold. Search all the forests of the earth for another leaf exactly like it. I defy you to find one. There is no science for the teguments of a leaf, for the filaments of a cell structure, the winding of a vein, the passion of a habit, or for the twists and quirks of character.

That a man’s nose is broken; one of his eyes higher than the other; an arm shrunken; that he habitually eats chicken at a certain hour or prefers Malvoise to Chateau-Margaux… there is something unparalleled in the world. Thales might have exclaimed philosophically as well as Socrates, but he would never have scratched his leg in precisely the same manner before drinking the hemlock draught. Great minds and their ideas are humanity’s common heritage. Actually, great men themselves possess only that which is bizarre about them. To describe a man in all his anomalies a book should be a work of art, like a Japanese print whereon the image of a tiny caterpillar, seen once at one particular hour of a day, is found eternally recorded.

On such individual facts history is silent. In the crude collection of material furnishing our testimony we find few singular or inimitable relics.

Misers all, valuing only politics or grammar, the ancient biographers have transmitted no more to us than the discourses of great men or the titles of their works. It was Aristophanes himself who gave us the joy of knowing that he was bald; and if the flat nose of Socrates had not served in literary comparisons, if his custom of walking barefoot had not been part of his system of philosophic scorn, we should have nothing left of him but moral dissertations. The gossip of Suetonius Tranquillus remains little more than spiteful polemic. Plutarch’s genius made an artist of him at times, though while he realized the essence of his art, he was always imagining parallels, as if two men properly described in all their qualities can ever resemble each other. In our search we are driven to consider the Atheneum, Aulu-Gelle, the scholiasts and even Diogenes Lærce, who thought he had composed a sort of history of philosophy.

In modern times the study of the individual has developed advantageously. Boswell’s book would have been perfect had he not felt obliged to quote Johnson’s correspondence together with digressions on Johnson’s works. More satisfying on the whole are Aubrey’s Lives Of Eminent Men, Aubrey had the instinct of a true biographer, there can be no doubt about it. What a pity it is that this excellent antiquarian’s style could not rise to the level of his conceptions! His book might have been the eternal masterpiece of its species, for Aubrey never saw the necessity of establishing connections between individual facts and general actions.

Others, he knew, would some day mark the celebrity of those great men in whom he interested himself, and he was satisfied. Statesman, poet or clockmaker, each subject finds, under his pen, some unique trait distinguishing that man forever among all men. During his one hundred and ten years of life the painter Hokusai hoped to arrive at the ideal of his art. In that moment, he said, every point and every line traced by his pencil should be a living thing. By living he meant unique and individual.

Now lines and points are superlatively alike: geometry is founded on that postulate. Yet Hokusai’s perfection of art required a superlative difference between them. To that end ideal biography should seek infinite differentiation between two philosophies invented around the same metaphysic. That is why Aubrey, concerning himself uniquely with men, never attained perfection, for he never accomplished the miraculous transformation of resemblances and diversities hoped for by Hokusai. But neither did Aubrey attain the age of one hundred and ten. He is estimable, nevertheless, and he himself has summed up the limitations of his own book. I recall, he writes in his preface to Anthony Wood, General Lambert’s words ‘the best of men are but men at best’ and you will find numerous examples of such in this crude, precocious collection. Should these arcana be revealed today or thirty years hence? It might be better if author and subject (like medlars) first die and rot. Among Aubrey’s predecessors can be found some of the rudiments of his art. Diogenes Lærce tells us that Aristotle wore on his abdomen a leather bag filled with hot oil, and that a quantity of terra cotta vases were found in his house after his death.

We shall never know what Aristotle did with all that pottery, and the mystery is as agreeable as Boswell’s conjectures regarding the orange peelings which Johnson was accustomed to save and carry in his pockets. For once Diogenes Lærce rises near to the sublimity of inimitable Boswell, but such pleasures are rare. Aubrey, however, offers them in nearly every line. Milton, he tells us, pronounced the letter R very hard. Spencer was

Reviews for Imaginary LIves

[mpho3 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

History for arts sake? Frida Kahlo read this while convalescing from the accident that shaped the rest of her life. I read a biography of Kahlo while convalescing from my life and thus discovered Schwob.In 10-page biographies, Schwob depicts "the unique existences of ... priests, criminals, or nobodies." Each is treated with an artistic verve that belies the notion that "minute records of great men or epochs or events of the past are not especially needed." Why say what's been said before? And yet, each of these tales is spun such that one may take them as a warning: beware that for which you ask! In describing one of his subjects, the painter Paolo Uccello, Schwob wrote, he "was not concerned with the reality of things but their multiplicity and the infinity of their lines." So, too Swchob, who chose for us,Empedocles, Supposed God Erostat, IncendiaryCrates, CynicSeptima, EnchantressLucretius, PoetClodia, Impure WomanPetronius, RomancerSufrah, GeomancerFra Dolcino, HereticCecco Angiolieri, Poet of HatePaolo Uccello, PainterNicholas Loyseleur, JudgeKatherine the Lacemaker, Girl of the StreetsAlain the Gentle, SoldierGabriel Spencer, ActorPocahontas, PrincessCyril Tourneur, Tragic PoetWilliam Phips, Treasure HunterCaptain Kidd, PirateWalter Kennedy, Unlettered PirateMajor Stede-Bonnet, Pirate by FancyBurke and Hare, AssassinsAmong them you're sure to find a kindred spirit--or hopefully not.

[datrappert · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is perhaps the hardest book I've ever had to review. If you just read the stories, they are entertaining enough--violent, tragic, strange, and so on. But since they are about real people, it is hard to judge what the author's intent was. This is especially true since most of them are obscure or ancient and my education never taught me about them, so I can't appreciate the alterations Schwob is introducing into their lives. I ended up looking at Wikipedia for many of these to see what the real story was. Schwob's versions tend to make things more definitive than they were. According to the introduction to a more modern version that I read a bit of, Schwob tends to focus on secondary players--such as the actor Ben Jonson killed rather than Jonson himself, or on Joan of Arc's false confessor. Still, the overall purpose eludes me.